Primarily a boy's name · 96% boys
Origin: WelshDylan is a given name and surname of Welsh origin. It means "son of the sea", "born from the ocean", or "great tide". It is derived from the Welsh words "dy," meaning "great," and "llanw," meaning "tide" or "sea".
From Wikipedia
In Pythagorean numerology, every letter has a value from 1 to 9. Adding the letters of Dylan yields these three numbers — a playful read on the name's character.
Dylan is one of the youngest names in this batch by data history: it first appears in US birth records only in 1953, decades later than the 1880 starting point most names in this range share. Its count peaked in 2001 at 16,497, but its best-ever rank, #19, wasn't reached until 2003 — the same lagged pattern seen in Ethan.
By 2024 its rank had slipped to #28, with 7,464 births — 28% below where it stood a decade earlier, a milder decline than Ethan's or Michael's but still a clear retreat from its early-2000s high.
Its famous-bearer list skews almost entirely toward film and streaming — Dylan O'Brien, Dylan Minnette, Jack Dylan Grazer — young actors rather than an older cultural reference, consistent with a name whose entire US popularity has unfolded within living memory rather than across generations.
Why did you choose this name — or what does it mean to you? Approved stories appear on this page.
→ See names similar to Dylan · Compare Dylan with another name → · Popular names of the 2000s · Boys names starting with D
Rank is among all boys' names registered that year.
| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1953 | 6 | #3,531 |
| 1954 | 7 | #3,240 |
| 1955 | 12 | #2,337 |
| 1956 | 10 | #2,680 |
| 1957 | 11 | #2,531 |
| 1958 | 22 | #1,695 |
| 1959 | 30 | #1,447 |
| 1960 | 39 | #1,257 |
| 1961 | 32 | #1,414 |
| 1962 | 20 | #1,825 |
| 1963 | 33 | #1,360 |
| 1964 | 38 | #1,266 |
| 1965 | 47 | #1,084 |
| 1966 | 62 | #928 |
| 1967 | 63 | #911 |
| 1968 | 121 | #686 |
| 1969 | 228 | #514 |
| 1970 | 315 | #457 |
| 1971 | 257 | #509 |
| 1972 | 302 | #454 |
| 1973 | 277 | #474 |
| 1974 | 384 | #395 |
| 1975 | 453 | #366 |
| 1976 | 399 | #387 |
| 1977 | 530 | #338 |
| 1978 | 480 | #351 |
| 1979 | 639 | #305 |
| 1980 | 822 | #265 |
| 1981 | 729 | #283 |
| 1982 | 700 | #290 |
| 1983 | 777 | #266 |
| 1984 | 971 | #231 |
| 1985 | 1,331 | #188 |
| 1986 | 1,833 | #149 |
| 1987 | 1,997 | #141 |
| 1988 | 2,158 | #137 |
| 1989 | 2,853 | #115 |
| 1990 | 4,414 | #83 |
| 1991 | 9,763 | #46 |
| 1992 | 15,063 | #28 |
| 1993 | 12,687 | #32 |
| 1994 | 12,530 | #32 |
| 1995 | 12,091 | #34 |
| 1996 | 12,037 | #33 |
| 1997 | 12,968 | #30 |
| 1998 | 14,540 | #25 |
| 1999 | 15,981 | #23 |
| 2000 | 15,405 | #24 |
| 2001 | 16,497 | #21 |
| 2002 | 14,821 | #23 |
| 2003 | 15,703 | #19 |
| 2004 | 14,852 | #19 |
| 2005 | 13,782 | #24 |
| 2006 | 13,171 | #26 |
| 2007 | 12,811 | #29 |
| 2008 | 11,707 | #31 |
| 2009 | 11,372 | #30 |
| 2010 | 10,518 | #31 |
| 2011 | 9,790 | #33 |
| 2012 | 10,000 | #31 |
| 2013 | 10,127 | #29 |
| 2014 | 10,416 | #29 |
| 2015 | 10,298 | #27 |
| 2016 | 9,719 | #32 |
| 2017 | 9,315 | #29 |
| 2018 | 8,610 | #31 |
| 2019 | 7,555 | #39 |
| 2020 | 6,855 | #42 |
| 2021 | 6,762 | #44 |
| 2022 | 6,738 | #42 |
| 2023 | 7,072 | #34 |
| 2024 | 7,464 | #28 |
